The 37th mandala : a novel (4 page)

But tonight the books were opaque to her. The figures lay like insects flattened between the pages, making her feel weary and stupid after five minutes of desultory study. This was not going to work. And tonight Michael was poorer company than usual.

She slammed the book shut. "I'm going out."

He didn't look up. "I'll be in the temple for a while, so don't, you know, worry about me."

Don't bother me
,
you mean
, she thought. He didn't ask anything else.

Lenore found her heaviest coat in the living room. She couldn't stand to be in the house another minute. It was horrible to be so cold indoors, where the chill oozed out of every surface and even the floor sucked the heat from your body. At least she expected to be cold outside.

The porch was littered with beer bottles, Cheer Wine cans, and motorcycle parts. A soggy broken-down couch, covered with a greasy sheet, was occupied by Tucker's automotive tools and a busted color TV set. Tucker had taken fifteen bucks a month off the original rent after Michael complained about the mess. Sometimes in warm weather Tucker came down, pushed the mess aside, and sat on the couch smoking grass and drinking beer, so they had to watch him pacing past their front window and hear him coughing and hacking and spitting over the rails. He was that kind of guy. His rust-eaten pickup truck was pulled up on the dead brown lawn, although he could have pulled it up behind the house or left it in the driveway, which he specifically hadn't rented to them. An older T-Bird in worse condition sat decomposing at the edge of the yard, half overgrown by brambles. Michael's crazed VW was parked on the lawn just off the driveway, and Lenore's dying hulk, a Cutlass Supreme, was on the road out front, beyond the bare hedges. She had the keys in her pocket, but the thought of driving didn't thrill her. The Cutlass had died too many times, leaving her stranded; she'd never yet been stuck on the roads outside of town, but she wasn't willing to take the risk tonight. A storm was headed toward the mountains; with her luck it would hit if she went out. Not that there was anywhere she felt like going. Even the nearest video store was a three-mile drive. She wanted to be happy where she was, but that would take some doing.

Music thumped down from upstairs. Even in the cold, Tucker's windows were open. Shoving her hands in her pockets, she went around the side of the house, down the driveway. As she passed the door to her own kitchen, she saw that Michael was already gone. She tiptoed up the flight of creaking, rotten steps to Tucker's flat.

The door was unlocked, so she went in. He'd never hear her knocking, but Michael might. Michael didn't approve of her upstairs visits, since there was only one reason she ever hung out with Tucker.

Tucker's kitchen was a shabbier version of their own: dishes piled in the sink, pie pans full of crusted cat food on the floor, an algae-colored stream running across the linoleum from beneath the fridge. Scabby, a calico with skin problems, jumped off the sink when she came in and followed her down the hall to the front of the house, until the music grew so loud that the cat refused to go any farther. Since the Renzlers' stereo was defunct, Tucker's music was about all they ever heard. Obligingly, he played it loud enough for both homes.

She saw Tucker's motorcycle boots propped on the foot-locker that served him as a coffee table, among a clutter of ashtrays, lighters, pipes and screens, and a massive, three-chambered red-white-and-blue acrylic bong. After taking a hit from the Patriot, you were required to stand and salute as you exhaled. A nearly full bottle of red wine sat on the floor next to the trunk; her mouth went dry and prickly at the sight of it.

Tucker lay back on the couch, eyes closed. The window above the couch was open; there were no curtains to move in the breeze, but she could feel it. Tucker thrived on the chill. He was almost too tall for the couch. Balding, with long curly hair and a scraggly beard, his beer gut peeping out from under a Harley-Davidson T-shirt, he looked oddly vulnerable. "Tuck!" she said.

He sat up as if a gun had gone off, his eyes bulging and crazed; but instantly, seeing her, relaxed and slumped down again, as if descending straight back into a trance. "Hey, girl," he said.

"Thought I heard Scarlet up here. Where is she?"

"Scarlet? Naw, she's not coming tonight."

"Shit, that's too bad. I was going to hang out with you guys for a while."

He opened one eye. "Well, sit yourself down anyway. I'm not doing anything. Where's your old man?" He reached for the remote control and turned down the volume on the CD player.

Lenore shrugged and sat down in a big broken armchair, folding her legs up close for warmth. Tucker had scrounged up most of the furniture for their downstairs flat when they'd moved in with nothing but a couple bags of clothes and a truckload of books. And their furniture, bad as it was, was in better condition than the stuff Tucker lived with. In his weird way, he was the best landlord she'd ever had.

"You want some smoke?" he offered.

Lenore shrugged. "Wouldn't turn it down."

He started loading a small ceramic bong. "Been pretty dry lately, and we're a long way from summer. You run out of that last bag I give you?"

"Days ago," she said.

"Wow, girl, you been holding out a good long time. Shoulda come see me before now."

"Hey, Tucker, I'm not a junkie or nothing. I can do without."

"Sure you can, babe. Sure you can. Here, taste this."

He finished tamping something green into the pipe of the bong and passed it to her along with his Harley-Davidson lighter. She burned it down in one deep breath; the stuff was hot and resinous, and immediately expanded in her lungs. She hacked it out in one violent burst, and then the coughing fit began.

"Whoa, girl, you're aiming high tonight!"

She couldn't answer. Her eyes were streaming, and her head felt as if it were shooting straight up through the roof of the house. Tucker scooped up the wine bottle by its neck and passed it to her. She knew she shouldn't; she even hesitated for a minute. Dope was one thing, but alcohol was another entirely, and she'd made a deal with Michael. No drinking. Pot, okay. But no alcohol.

But it wasn't the first time she'd broken her little rule up here with Tucker, and what the fuck, she was coughing her lungs out. She needed something wet. It didn't really take her long to make the decision; she put the bottle to her mouth and swallowed. One swig was all she needed. It was all she'd ever needed.

A tight little ball in her stomach uncoiled as soon as she drank; it eased her coughing jag instantly, but then she felt embarrassed because her bowels turned to water and she already knew the condition of Tucker's toilet. No way would she use it; but she couldn't go back downstairs. Not yet. She sat very still, holding the bong and the bottle. After a few seconds, she took another swallow. The tension eased. Her guts stopped cramping. She laid back her head and shut her eyes.

She could hear Tucker moving around; he switched the music off and slapped a tape into his VCR.

"So where's Michael? Did you tell me?"

"Fucking Michael," she said dreamily, peering out between her lashes. "He's doing his stuff again."

"Goddamn, that guy's a regular devil worshipper."

"It's not devil worship, Tucker. He doesn't believe in that shit. I'm not sure myself exactly what it is, but it's not the devil."

"I don't care. All the heavy metal bands, they're into that Satan shit. It's cool with me."

"It's fucking lame," Lenore pronounced. She felt the jug in her lap, cool and comforting, a nice round heaviness.

"You like that stuff?" he said. "Pretty good, huh?"

"Mmm-hm."

"I'll give you some, okay? Same deal as last time?"

"Mm-hm, sure."

"I got a Baggie all ready to sell, but you can have it if you're sure. ..."

She was sleepy, drifting. Thoughts were coming to her, thoughts like feelings, drifting up inside her till they burst at the surface of her mind.

"You want a beer?"

At that moment, they both heard a bell ringing downstairs, sharp and pure, penetrating the walls of the house. As the tone faded slowly into inaudibility, she was sure she heard Michael chanting in a deep voice.

Tucker laughed. "There he goes! Let me get you that beer, baby."

She tried to say no, she had the bottle, but the words didn't exactly come out in a hurry, and by then Tucker was putting a cold can against her cheek.

"Shoot, honey, you must be feeling pretty good."

Realizing that she was grinning, she opened her eyes. "Oh, yeah." Laughing.

"You go right ahead and pop that. I'll load you up another hit."

Lenore was laughing hard, and Tucker had the music turned way up again and he was laughing too, and the video was going but there wasn't any sound from that. Then she knocked over the beer in her lap and reached down to pick it up again, but she wasn't in the big old chair at all anymore, she was sitting on the couch, and there were a bunch of cans scattered around that hadn't been there before, so many she wasn't sure which one she'd been drinking from. The bottle was there; she remembered it like an old friend, wistfully, since it was empty now; and she felt like she was surfacing for a big gulp of air, but then ... and then ... she looked up and Tucker was standing by the VCR, stepping back from the TV looking over at her with his goofy ugly grin missing a couple teeth and she could see on the screen why he hadn't bothered with the sound, since there would have been nothing to hear but moaning. He'd slipped in one of his porno tapes. She found her can and swallowed but it was empty, but that didn't matter because Tucker had read her mind and was pulling the top off another. And then ... and then ...

And then his arm was around her, and she thought she'd been vomiting because her throat burned and her mouth was sour, but she couldn't remember it. She opened her eyes and moaned, and sure enough Tucker had his arm thrown across her chest and he was son of helping her, but really more urging her to lie back down. When she realized what was happening she started to fight him, she threw herself forward, but Tucker got rougher then and grabbed her shoulders and shoved her back down on his bed. They were in his room, and what bothered her most was that it all looked sort of familiar, as if she had seen it before in exactly this way but never remembered till now, and would probably forget it all over again—which scared her more than anything that was actually happening yet.

"Tucker!" she said. "Get off!"

He pulled back, looking hurt, as if surprised that she would really object. "Hey, girl. ..."

She tried to crawl backward. "What are you doing?"

"What do you think? You said same deal as last time. You want the weed or not?"

"The weed?" She stood up, swayed, stumbled but caught herself on the doorframe.

"Well, there's the rent too, but I wasn't gonna get into that yet."

"What, were you gonna come down later and try'n collect?"

"Lenore ..."He shook his head, coming back off the bed. "Shit. Don't do this."

"I gotta go." She turned out into the hall, or thought she had. The edge of the doorframe slammed into her face. She stood there with her eyes closed, holding very still but spinning anyway. Just then, from downstairs, she heard the bell again. Michael was finishing up. He could probably hear them up here; he might assume it was Scarlet and Tucker; he was good at wishful thinking. She had to get away—somewhere she could straighten out.

Tucker was right on her, putting a finger to his lips. "Shush, you hear him down there?"

"I hear him. We're both fucking idiots."

"Well, baby, takes two to you-know."

She swerved away, free now. Hoping her clothes were all on, since she didn't want to have to come back for anything later, she made her way to the kitchen, then out the door into the cold. Her coat.

"Hey, girl, don't forget this." Tucker had it; he was right behind her, looking stone sober. "Now don't be mad at me. You're a pretty little thing, I'm only doing what comes natural. Besides, I thought we had an agreement."

She snatched the coat from him.

"I'll hold onto that Baggie for a while," he called. "In case you change your mind. But I can't wait too much longer for the rent. You tell your old devil-man I said so, okay?"

She hardly knew she was going down the steps; her kitchen was empty but she flew on past it. Somehow she got off the driveway and into the bushes, where she had to fight her way through tangles to the Cutlass. The Cutlass was unlocked. She got in and started the engine, put the heater on high, and sat there shaking as if with cold, though really she just felt numb. Same deal as last time, he'd said. What last time? Why couldn't she remember? What had she done last time? What the fuck was wrong with her mind? She closed her eyes and felt herself spinning as if the car were out of control on a patch of black ice. She put her head down, gripped the steering wheel, and held on tight.

The Sisterhood of Incarnate Light had paid Derek's flat speaking fee up front, before the program. Only now that the show was over, his lecture delivered, did he discover they wanted to cheat him out of his part of the take. That wasn't quite how the Sisters put it, but Derek knew their scam, time-honored no matter how New Age.

"Your talk was certainly valuable, Mr. Crowe," one was telling him now, trying to lubricate his goodwill with her buttery Southern tones while another Sister went to enlist the aid of a superior, "but we're a nonprofit organization. We're all volunteers here."

Derek, while seething, was unwilling to waste his rage on an underling. "
You
might have volunteered to bake cookies and tear tickets," he said, "but I'm the one who filled this hall tonight, on the strength of my research and hard work, and I did
not
volunteer."

Fill
was an exaggeration, but one he did not linger over. The only reason the hall had come even close to capacity was because the Sisters had wisely rented a smallish auditorium, something suited to the showing of a midnight movie. Even so, he had no doubt the Sisters had never drawn such a crowd.